


Spaces Change, Remain the Same

by bazinga01



Category: The Bold Type
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 13:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16996218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazinga01/pseuds/bazinga01
Summary: Kat's apartment is a place of breaking and a place of healing. Kat's apartment bears witness. (A post-2x10 fic)





	Spaces Change, Remain the Same

**Author's Note:**

> As with my last fic, this one is not an "endorsement" so to speak of the canon story that the bold type chose to pursue for kat and adena. I am not seeking to justify or correct anything that has happened. But a particular thought struck me, one that existed in an imaginary of the aftermath of 2x10, and I chose to pursue it.

She honestly doesn’t know what’s worse—the aching sadness, or the angry self-loathing. She alternates between the two like tides, a steady ebb and flow.

When she was little and her parents would take her to Newport for summer vacation, she’d stand still in the wet sand on the beach and let the waves crawl past her feet, then recede. She’d feel the sand sink away beneath her toes, pulled back to sea, and feel her balance shift, no longer on steady ground.

That’s how it’s been now, for weeks. The ebb and flow. The sadness and the self-loathing. Standing still while the ground carves out beneath her, like shifting sand.

Jane is doing a piece for digital on divorce. Well, specifically, she’s doing a piece on a woman who moved on from a divorce by taking all her wedding china out to her backyard and smashing it to pieces with a baseball bat.

Jane is fascinated by the spectacle of it, by the woman’s claims that the physicality of it helped her move on. She sips her glass of chardonnay on the sofa, recounts the pictures that went viral a couple days ago.

Kat blinks at her.

Sutton looks between them with an awkward smile and meets Kat’s eyes. Like she knows that talking about break-ups in any context is haunted by the memory of Adena and she doesn’t understand how Jane hasn’t clued in yet.

“Wish I had a baseball bat and some relationship dishware,” she says, finishing off her glass before reaching for the bottle to re-fill.

Jane’s eyes turn sad and she pauses, sets her glass down on the coffee table.

“Kat…” she says, sympathetic. But then there’s this frown of protest. “It’s been almost three months…”

The implication isn’t lost on her. In 8 days, her grief and anger will be older than her relationship ever was.

She doesn’t know how to exist in a world that wasn’t made for loss like this, that measures the depth and intensity of relationships by time. She doesn’t know how to wake up in a world where she’s not supposed to be this fucking sad and angry anymore.

“I’m aware,” she bites, then rubs at her eyes. Sutton frowns and shoots a look at Jane. “Look, I uh- I’m gonna go home. It’s getting late anyway and tomorrow morning there’s the—”

“Kat, wait, I’m sorry,” Jane tries, but she’s already putting her shoes on and grabbing her coat.

“Don’t. It’s fine. I’ll, um, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

 

She never bought dishware with Adena.

But there was a pair of colorful ceramic mugs, from the market in Cusco.

She eyes them on the shelf, tucked away among other colorful dishware, and tosses her coat on the kitchen table. It takes all of ten seconds for her to pull them down, carry them in her hands as she walks across the room.

She stands still for one heavy moment, unsure, then feels the floorboards start to creak beneath her feet, like shifting sand.

She hurls one of the mugs at the wall of her apartment, sound piercing the quiet as it shatters and fragments across the floor. For a brief, exhilarating moment, there is relief. The loathing in her mind quiets.

 And then she takes in the sight of it, the shattered remains of a memory on the floor, one less thing to hold onto, and she clutches the remaining mug to her sweater, protecting it as she sinks to the ground with a sob.

It’s been eleven weeks and five days since Adena went away, and she still can’t figure how to feel anything other than the ghost of not good enough.

 

***

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

***

 

 

Adena is snuggled up on Kat’s couch, legs tucked under a blanket as she toggles to show the next photo to her.

“Oh wow,” Kat breathes, leaning in closer to the screen, as if that will get her closer to the intensity of the moment somehow. “Dena, this is incredible. You’re gonna display this, right? In the gallery show for the project?” Kat glances over to meet her eyes again and she bites her lip, nodding. “Of course you are, how could you not…” Kat marvels, looking back at the photo again.

Adena sets her laptop down on the table, making sure it’s secure before sinking into the warmth of Kat’s embrace.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, kissing Kat’s neck before peeking her head up to meet her eyes. “I’m happy you like them.”

Kat smiles, and a contented warmth settles deep in her chest. “It’s cute,” Kat crinkles her nose, “how you get all shy like this even when you know your work is hot shit and gonna amaze everyone.”

She laughs, ducking her face into Kat’s shoulder while she plays with the soft hem of her t-shirt. “It’s different,” she tries to explain. “When you look at my work…”

“Mm,” Kat hums, curious. Adena feels her scratch gently at her arm, mindless in its intimacy. “How’s it different?”

She stares off into space, tries to piece together how she feels in a way that will make sense. “It’s…” she trails off, taking in the red hue of Kat’s wall. Her gaze catches on a mark she hasn’t noticed before, a clear indent in the otherwise smooth expanse of the wall. She spent enough time in contemplation on this sofa before to know that it didn’t used to be there. She giggles. “Kat, baby, what happened to your wall?”

She asks it innocently, sure there must be some ridiculous clumsy story behind it, and she’s not at all prepared for the way that Kat’s body stills and goes tense around her.

She sits up, confused, and searches out Kat’s eyes. “Kat?”

Kat refuses to meet her gaze for several seconds and it’s starling, how quickly her mood shifts. She doesn’t understand.

She’s wholly unprepared for the tearful gaze that meets hers and the nervous sad way that Kat clears her throat. She reaches up on instinct, gently holds Kat’s face and strokes her cheek with her thumb. “ _Joonam_ , what’s wrong?”

“There was this lady in Los Angeles,” Kat says after a long pause, breaking eye contact to stare at their clasped hands. “She went through an awful divorce. And after a while, she was just trying to figure out how to move on.” She frowns in confusion, not understanding but not daring to interrupt. “So, she took all the fancy china dishes that someone gave them for their wedding out into her backyard. And then her friend threw the china in the air and she smashed it to pieces with a baseball bat. She said that it helped her a lot. The pictures went viral.” She feels an awful knot twist in her stomach, aware of what Kat might be trying to say. “We never got any china together. Just a couple mugs.”

The words pierce her and she stares back at the dent in Kat’s wall.

“I tried it. It didn’t work.”

She stares and stares and when she finally manages to shift her anguished gaze away from the mark, it’s to pull Kat into a kiss. Kat meets her tentatively, despite her reservations, and it’s gentle, as if all the softness and the care might somehow be able to soothe the aches of not so old wounds.

“I’m sorry,” Adena whispers, a couple of tears tracking down her cheeks. “Thank you for telling me.” She sniffles and then pulls Kat in for another kiss, deeper this time, and Kat sinks into her touch.

There is so much more for them to keep talking about, she knows. She’s not foolish enough to think that everything is fine just because they’ve talked it out and they’ve been giving this a real try again for the past couple of months.

She knows that it’s not fine. She can feel it in the way that Kat gets cautious and shy in bed, in the way she asks afterwards how it was for her even when Adena is sated and breathless.  She can feel it every time that Kat downplays a compliment or says that an accomplishment at work isn’t that big of a deal. She feels it every time Kat looks happy and relieved when Adena shows her something new that she’s been working on.

Kat is not as confident around her, not like she used to be, and it kills her.

She can only hope that with enough time and healing words, Kat will start to hear her. That Kat will believe she’s inspiring to her, and that she never _was_ uninspiring. That it was just about space, about learning how to build the kind of home where she could thrive and figuring out what she needed to enjoy being still. That Kat was absolutely a muse, such a muse Adena got lost in her, not realizing it until she was caught in the spiral and desperate for an anchor.

But there is only so much that can be healed at once. This is a deep wound that needs time, and she’s not in any hurry.

Adena adjusts, still keeping contact but giving Kat a little more space. Kat always needs some room when she’s feeling vulnerable.

“Sometimes I get shy when I share my art with you because I care deeply about what you see and think,” Adena says, voice soft. Kat turns to her and blinks, almost as if ready to protest even amidst her own storm of insecurity. “Not because I need your approval,” Adena smiles. “But, because, when you see my art, you see me. Is not like strangers at a gallery. You are not just seeing my art when you look at it. You are finding more of me through my art. There is…an intimacy to that exchange that is so beautiful, but also…”

She shrugs, not needing to finish her thought, and Kat’s eyes are still shining but not in a sad way anymore.

Kat chokes on a laugh, wipes her eye with her sleeve. “And here I thought you were just trying to be humble.”

“That too,” she winks, letting them be playful again.

“So you _do_ know you’re hot shit,” Kat grins, and Adena rolls her eyes. “I’m taking that as a yes.”

“C’mere,” she murmurs, even though she’s the one that’s crawling into Kat’s lap.

Kat smirks, tilts up to capture her lips, and there’s an echo of that old confidence that makes her heart sing. “Does this mean you’re gonna stay the night even though you’ve got that 8am meeting in Bed-Stuy?”

Adena runs her nails along the back of Kat’s neck and revels in the satisfied hum that it elicits from her girlfriend.

“As if you hadn’t guessed that already…”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was an exploration of two things: the emotional weight of kat's apartment as a physical space as experienced by those who have followed their story, and the way that a particular detail can bear witness and speak to a larger story. It really came to me out of nowhere, as I had a rare spare chunk of time amidst an otherwise very busy season.
> 
> I've missed writing and sharing my work with you all. I continue to hold immense gratitude for this fandom, and how special and unique it is. As always, comments are very much appreciated and encourage me in my writing!
> 
> on tumblr @starchasertonight ; on twitter @starchaser2n8


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